WE ARE NAT DEM
Message to KM64 on its 15th Founding Anniversary
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
I am delighted to convey warmest greetings of solidarity to my fellow poets and all the lovers of patriotic and progressive creative writing and art in KM64 on the occasion of its 15th founding anniversary. I congratulate you for having strengthened your ranks and for having brought together the newly-risen spoken word collectives, the visual artists and musicians.
I commend you for having made a breakthrough in forming the alliance Kaisahan ng mga Artista at Manunulat na Ayaw sa Development Aggression (KAMANDAG). Of course, you mean to be lethal to the factors and agents of imperialist plunder and war. I am glad that you are now focused on a campaign against the projects that are destructive to the lives of the peasants and indigenous people in Central Luzon.
I congratulate you for having successfully taken up 15 major social concerns in your poetic creativity and militant actions during the last 15 years.
The concerns are: 1. the need to oust the president as chief executive of oppression and exploitation, 2. genuine land reform and Hacienda Luisita as center of caciquism, 3. political detainees: Axel, Ericson, Sharon and others, 4. the workers: story of Coke, Tanduay, Nestle, ABS-CBN, IWS, Kentex nd others, 5. national Minorities: Lumad to Aeta, 6. budget cuts 7. Visiting Forces Agreement and imperialism, 8. Sa ‘ yo te: story and struggle of women, 9. new women: The Flors and Mary Janes, 10. homes: demolition and occupation (from Corazon de Jesus to Manggahan Floodway) , 11. platform of patriotic change, 12. cyber crime 13. war on drugs 14. martial law ,and 15. extraordinary events (tribute to comrades)
I salute you for your categorical declaration, We Are Nat Dem. In the first place, since your own founding, you have been inspired by the Kabataang Makbayan founded in 1964. Thus, I have always presumed that you are nat dem. You as an organization and as individual members of KM64 have played a significant role in the cultural and political life of our country because you serve the Filipino people and you take the general line of struggle for national liberation and democracy.
You have been able to scan the horizon and raise your arms and spirit to the heavens because your feet are firmly on the ground and you voice out the crying needs, urgent demands and aspirations of the Filipino people. The crises of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system and the world capitalist system are ever worsening and inflicting so much hardship and suffering on the people. You are thus challenged and called upon to rise up and fight for a fundamentally better and brighter world.
Today, we are confronted by the monstrous US-directed Duterte puppet regime. This regime is extremely murderous and greedy. It has engaged in the worst kind of mass intimidation, such as the mass murder of suspected drug users and pushers in impoverished communities and now increasingly at an accelerated rate the mass murder of suspected revolutionaries as well as social activists, all of whom this evil regime tries to vilify as ¨terrorists¨.
In fact, Duterte is the No. 1 terrorist of the Philippines. In his hands are the weapons of state terrorism. He is using the military, police and paramiltary forces to intimidate the people and to advance his scheme of fascist dictatorship, He has deliberatedly terminated the peace negotiations with the NDFP in order to scapegoat the CPP and NPA and have the pretext for nationwide martial law by which to ensure the adoption of a tyrannical and pseudo-federal constitution.
This is a fascist constitution being railroaded, imposing on the people a highly centralized presidential dictatorhip lording over an expensive array of regional governments run by reactionary dynasties, big comprador, landlords and warlords. There will be a system of double taxation to overburden the people. Foreign investors are allowed to own 100 per cent enterprises that exploit the natural resources, operate public utilities and engage in all businesses. The economic sovereignty is wantonly violated and the national patrimony is sold out.
Duterte has spoken of carrying out an independent foreign policy. But in fact he wants to serve any foreign master so long as this serves his selfish interest. He keeps all the unequal treaties, agreements and arrangements with the US in order to let the US stay as the dominant foreign power over the Philippines, especially after obtaining from Trump unlimited contingency funds under Operation Pacific Eagle for the purpose of armed counterrevolution.
At the same time, he sells out the sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea and natural resources of our people to one more foreign master in exchange for overpriced infrastructure projects and high interest loans, to serve the corruption of his clique of high bureaucrats and big compradors. He is so shameless in committing treason that he proclaims publicly his desire to turn the Philippines into a province of China.
The Filipino people suffer the ever worsening conditions of oppression and exploitation. You must denounce and counteract the bloody campaigns of suppression against the toiling masses of workers and peasants and revolutionaries and the daily violence of exploitation as a result of underdevelopment, mass poverty, high rate of unemployment, low incomes, soaring prices of basic goods and services, social deprivations, cultural degradation and the despoliation of the environment.
As creative writers of protest and revolution, you must be active in the movement against tyranny and oppose the escalating exploitation of the people. You must always take up the challenge to fight the daily violence of oppression and exploitation and cast the light on crucial issues against all efforts of the oppressors and exploiters to silence the people with acts of mass intimidation and mass murder by the state and as well as to deceive the people with misleading pronouncements and fake news.
In fighting the violence and deception of the imperialists and their local reactionary agents, you must employ your literary skills in the campaigns to arouse, organize and mobilize the people for national and social liberation. I praise the KM64 poets and activists for having immersed themselves in mass work among the urban and rural poor. You have proven your mettle and worth. You are in the forefront of the people´s revolutionary struggle.
There is abundance of subject matter for your poems and other creative works from the dismal realities, the misery and suffering of the people. But there is also the abundance of subject matter arising from the people´s national democratic movement in the arena of legal struggle as well as in the field of revolutionary armed struggle .There are heroic efforts and brilliant victories of the revolutionarry masses for you to celebrate and project in order to inspire new and higher levels of mass struggle.
Your poems and related creative works are a major and indispensable factor in the national democratic revolution. They must contribute to the arousal, organization and mobilization of the people for greater victories in the revoutionary struggle.You must motivate and inspire the people to participate in strengthening the leading party of the revolutionary movement, the mass organizations, the forces of people´s defense and the organs of political power.
The victories already won on a nationwide scale by the Filipino people and their revolutionary forces should lead to ever greater victories until total victory and the basic completion of the national democratic revolution as the beginning of the socialist revolution. You must be ever resolved to fight for a new Philippines that is independent, democratic, socially just and progressive in an all-round way.
Mabuhay ang KM64!
Mabuhay ang rebolusyong Pilipino!
Mabuhay ang sambayanang Pilipino!
